Saturday, May 30, 2015

Jade Helm Joke

Turns out it was all a trap and set-up for those sounding the alarm, and here is the proof:

"Suspicion of US government reaches a new level in Texas; Talk of military takeover reflects pervasive views about president" by Matt Viser Globe Staff May 26, 2015

It was splashed across the front page, meaning there will be no martial law this summer. The 2016 elections will be enough of a distraction (if not something worse, like a nuclear false flag).

BASTROP, Texas — The citizenry was on edge.

In a sign of the deep distrust that has emerged in conservative parts of the country, on this day in this town 30 miles east of Austin, anger and concern poured out about a large-scale US military training exercise to be conducted in Texas and throughout the Southwest. Rumors stoked on the Internet and conservative talk radio spread fears that the troops and Humvees that will roll through Bastrop this summer are part of a plot by the Obama administration to declare martial law in Texas.I know some will say drills and project cancelled because bloggers blew the whistle, we force them to back down, have stalled war on Iran and the like; however, I no longer believe that. I no longer believe the government and power structure give a damn about what I type. They are moving forward when they are moving forward, and that's that. I'm letting off steam, and they know right where I am.

An Army officer in fatigues who flew in from Fort Bragg, N.C., in a bid to soothe nerves stood at the front of the overflowing meeting room and answered a barrage of questions — some of them seemingly bizarre.

No, the military wouldn’t be seizing guns. No, the Walmarts closing down in certain communities are not being converted to detain and process political dissidents. No, the operation was not in preparation for World War III.Well, we are in World War III now so....

“You may have issues with the federal government. You may have issues with the administration. So be it,” Lieutenant Colonel Mark Lastoria said, pointing for emphasis at his US Army dress. “But this institution right here has been with you for over 240 years. Period.”

Jim Dillon was not convinced. A contractor who drove 70 miles from his home in Liberty Hill, he rose from his seat holding a handmade sign that read: “No Gestapo in Bastropo.”

“I didn’t believe a single thing he just said,” Dillon declared. The crowd applauded with gusto.

Suspicion has built across many parts of America during the administration of President Obama, giving rise to the Tea Party movement and fueling an intense wave of anti-Washington resentment. But the spread of conspiracy theories appeared to reach a fantastical peak in Texas in recent weeks with assertions that the sweeping military operation called Jade Helm 15 is a takeover plot hatched in the nation’s capital by the White House and the Pentagon.Aaaaaaah! Honestly, for the greatest purveyor of fantastical conspiracy theories and lone nuts to be hurling that.... screamed set-up to me.

Paranoid ideas about the US government are not new in certain segments of the political spectrum.

But the theories in this case — dismissed as “kooky” on Fox News — gained greater currency in Texas when the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, ordered the Texas State Guard to “continuously monitor” the US military training activities because “it is important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights, and civil liberties will not be infringed.”Well, there you have it. When Fox is casting kooky about at others....

US Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who is running for president, said he would demand answers from the Pentagon about the exercises. So did several Texas congressmen.

“No,” Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said recently, when asked at a press conference whether the military was planning to take over Texas.Well, not now.

How did America become so divided, the state of the union so fractured, that the secretary of defense is forced to deny the Army is planning the hostile takeover of a state?Isn't that why you are here, reader?

Interviews with residents of this community illuminate the distrust that has developed across deeply conservative America — fueled by anger at the White House and Congress and a sense among many that the federal government is no longer on the side of the people it is dedicated to serve.Oh, maybe it's the police state tyranny, the spying, the war lies, the hands-off of bankers, etc, etc. I don't think that is a "conservative" issue alone. Then I wonder if the federal government was ever on the side of the people, or were my history books full of a certain version of history put out by the ruling oppressors to justify that rape and pillage of the planet.

The conflict about the Jade Helm exercise illustrates some of the most confounding political divisions in the country. It reveals how an increased willingness to believe in sinister plots, fomented by people once dismissed as occupying the political fringe, has seeped into the political mainstream of the nation’s second-largest state.I can't imagine who they could be talking about.

* * *

Texas has more veterans than almost any other state.A lot of them are bikers, too.

In Bastrop, some are members of a veterans honor guard and provide military funerals with full honors, complete with rifle squad and ”Taps.’’ It’s the kind of place where, when people walk the street in military uniforms, strangers stop to thank them. Restaurants serve them free meals.

So last fall, when military officials approached the county about conducting a large-scale military exercise called Jade Helm 15, few local officials thought anything of it. The operation will take place in parts of seven states across the Southwest over two months, from July 15 to Sept. 15, and involve 1,200 Special Operations troops preparing to fight overseas.So where are they preparing to invade, Syria?

Because the exercise will mostly take place on private land in remote areas, the military says, local residents won’t notice anything aside from an increase in military vehicles on the roads and in the air.

In January, top Bastrop County officials here held a public hearing and voted to welcome the military to town. There was little opposition at the time.

“We didn’t think it would be that big of a deal, to tell you the truth,” said Bubba Snowden, one of the county commissioners. “We made a mistake.”That might be a first from government.

Soon, Snowden, a Republican who served in an airborne unit, would learn that there was a strand of opposition in his community just waiting to stir.

Judge Paul Pape stood outside the county courthouse on a recent day, wearing black cowboy boots, a wide hat, and a tie with the Texas state flag on it.

“This isn’t really about Jade Helm,” Pape said. “This is much deeper. This just revealed a condition that exists here in Texas.”

* * *

On March 19, inside a studio in the state capital of Austin, talk radio host Alex Jones sat behind an anchor’s desk in a gray suit and open-collared shirt.Uh-oh! They dragged him out again.

“We’ve got huge breaking news, ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a gravelly voice to his national audience of some 1 million listeners. “It’s going to be happening in Austin’s back door.”

One of his staffers had obtained a document from a military veteran that included a Special Operations command map that listed Texas, Utah, and a portion of California as “hostile” for purposes of the Jade Helm military exercise. To Jones, this was explosive news. His website headlined it: “Feds Preparing to Invade Texas.”

“They’re going to practice breaking into things and stuff. This is going to be hellish,” Jones said. “Now this is just a cover for deploying the military on the streets . . . This is an invasion.”

The operation, he said, “is in preparation for the financial collapse and maybe even Obama not leaving office.”

Jones, 41, grew up in Texas, the son of a dentist and a homemaker. He got his start on public access television in Austin and now controls a media empire that includes websites, streaming TV, and a syndicated radio program. His show is streamed weekdays online, through smartphone apps, and is carried by more than 160 radio stations.

He has built this media powerhouse on sensational claims. He believes the US government was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He theorized that the Boston Marathon attacks were done by the US government to expand its reach into society. New York magazine called him “America’s Leading (and Proudest) Conspiracy Theorist,” while the Southern Poverty Law Center called him “almost certainly the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America.”

His YouTube channel has more than 1 million subscribers, and his videos have been viewed nearly 510 million times. He has also produced more than 17 documentaries.

And while Fox News commentators have been dismissing Jones as “a nut job,” some of the top politicians in Texas have echoed some, but not all, of his views, as they seize a political advantage from conservative paranoia about Obama.

Jones initially agreed to an interview for this story but later declined after the Globe said it would not conduct the interview live on his radio show at his studio, which is tucked away in a nondescript brick office complex in Austin.Okay, I'm going to take some time to talk about Alex. He's kinda been outed by deeper truth searchers as controlled opposition. My experience began when he and Rivero were what came up on my Google searches at the school to find out what really happened on 9/11. I've bought some of his products, but over time my interest began to wane because the best way to control an opposition is to lead it. At times he has been an apologist for Israel and pushes the Bush death cult and Nazi thing a bit too hard (that is not to say Bushes are not criminal scum, they are). He does have some good stuff over there because a credible controlled conspiracy theorist must divulge most of the truth; however, the big backing of the CIA candidate Ron Paul and the siphoning away any chance of an independent candidate stuck in my craw. The money bombs dissipated to nothing. So when Alex screams now I tend to reach for the earplugs.

Not long after Jones began raising alarm bells about Jade Helm, officials in Bastrop began hearing from concerned residents. Phones began ringing in the county commissioners’ offices. Skeptical messages popped up on Facebook, and people began approaching community leaders at church gatherings. They were worried about the government coming to take their guns. There was a sense that President Obama would be willing to do anything to crush dissent.I don't discount it; however, I don't see it. A nuclear 9/11 would be the only way, and the mushroom cloud at this point would scream false flag.

One of those who began to grow increasingly worried was Terry Wareham, a local Tea Party leader.

“Probably a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t even be concerned,” she said. “But with the federal government the way it is right now, I’m really concerned about the military coming here and doing this kind of training.”

Albert Ellison, the chairman of the Bastrop County Republican Party, said conservatives in the area already feel under attack from the Obama administration. It’s easy, he said, to believe the president would trample on their constitutional rights.

“What comes home in the conservative consciousness is: The government is hostile to me,” he said. “And if he’s already unleashed the IRS on us, is it a big leap to think he’d unleash the military?”I'm wondering how conservative are all the black youth getting gunned down by white cops.

With concerns rising, county officials decided they needed to call another meeting. Pape called military officials in Fort Bragg, the Army base in North Carolina helping to oversee the operation, and asked them to come and brief residents.

Lastoria, the lieutenant colonel, answered questions for more than two hours at the community meeting.

He sought to cast the operation as low-key, but the crowd was hostile, peppering him with concerns.

“Why is it not reasonable for me to see this as absolute training for a domestic rendition program?” one man asked.

“This is a one-sided conversation!” another man shouted.

* * *

Jim Dillon has soft eyes, a light stubble, and a lilting accent with a bit of a Southern drawl that gives him an outwardly gentle demeanor.

But when Lastoria came to Bastrop to explain the military operation, Dillon said he couldn’t help calling the man a liar.

During a series of interviews at a bookstore (where he held a book called “Conspiracy Theory in America” under his arm), at a gun shop (where he browsed pistols as a store clerk chomped on beef jerky), and at his house (where he demonstrated his marksmanship by firing a pistol in his backyard), Dillon explained his deep sense of suspicion.

“Our freedom is under attack,” said Dillon, a 60-year-old contractor. “This is one little incremental step in a long-term plan to not only exercise more control but to gain more control.”

If Texas allows this military training exercise, in his view, there will be more. People will grow accustomed to seeing military officers on average American streets. And at some point, it will no longer be an exercise. It will become a way of life. Like a frog that gets used to the hot water only to later realize it was boiling, he believes, the public needs to act now, before it’s too late.We have been on simmer for 15 years now.

“I don’t know that I would say this is the big one where they sneak in under the guise of a training exercise and clamp down on civil liberties in Texas. It’s too early for that,” Dillon said. “But it’s conditioning. It’s getting people accustomed to having heavily armed, camouflaged soldiers on the city streets, ranches, farms, public roads.”That's the first step in a false flag, yeah.

He has tried to make his home as self-sufficient as possible.Probably a good idea in any event. As we have seen from this government, they aren't going to be there in the event of disaster.

He has a propane tank, and he utilizes well water. He has more than a dozen goats and an expansive garden tended by him, his wife, and two daughters. He keeps a couple of pistols in each car and has a safe in his home with a collection of shotguns. During a Globe reporter’s visit, an AK-47 assault rifle rested on a table near the front door.

“We have the potential, like Nazi Germany did, to go really bad,” he said. “And if we don’t nip this stuff in the bud — once it gets its head under the tent, it’s there.”Actually, it's an even purer form of fa$ci$m than that, for this is a corporate-owned government that serves banks.

Even while Dillon and others are wary of all politicians — Democrats and Republicans — their views have been given legitimacy in the highest echelons of Texas political leadership, including the governor.

The day after the public hearing in Bastrop, Abbott — who was the state’s longest-serving attorney general before being elected governor in 2014 — requested that the Texas State Guard monitor the federal military operation.

Not all Republicans were pleased. One former Republican state senator, Todd Smith, accused Abbott of “pandering to idiots.”

Abbott has declined several requests for an interview over the past several weeks. After his initial remarks got widespread media attention, he emphasized that Texans support the US military while laying the blame for popular concern on Obama.

“The cause of the underlying concerns is that we see instances, like a shooting in Fort Hood by a terrorist, that the president labels workplace violence. We see the president come to the border in Texas and say it’s safer than it’s ever been,” Abbott told Austin-based NBC affiliate KXAN-TV. “And so I think it was a misplaced perception by people in Texas who have problems with the Obama administration and connected that trust with the Obama administration to the military.”

Longtime observers of state politics were only slightly surprised by Abbott’s decision.

“Did he stray into this conspiratorial territory? It seems like he did,” said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas. “But he’s not going to pay too much of a price here. The negative views of Obama and the federal government here are stratospheric among Republicans.”The real problem now is it is the propaganda pre$$ that is on the spot regarding conspiracies. They are the ones that have to defend inane cover stories and total crap.

Henson’s department did polling of Texans in February, which showed the federal government was the least trusted institution. But it also showed that the military was the most trusted. Given the popularity of the military, Henson said, the governor could have chosen to back them more whole-heartedly.

“There was an easy, safe, mainstream play on this,” he said. “And they chose to hedge on this and instead speak to the right wing of the party.”

* * *

It’s about noon on a recent rainy weekday. Jones is finishing up the first of three hours on the radio, hammering away against Jade Helm. Rush Limbaugh can be heard criticizing Hillary Clinton on three different AM stations, coming up nearly one out of every five turns of the dial.

Outside the American Legion post in Bastrop, a howitzer and an old Air Force plane are hulking reminders of the town’s military ties.

Inside, AC/DC blares over the speakers as about a half-dozen local veterans drink bottles of Budweiser and munch on Cheetos. Cigarette smoke fills the room of dart boards, video games, and pool tables.

Some are veterans themselves; others are friends or relatives of a veteran. Most are supportive of the Jade Helm operation and are baffledthat anyone would think otherwise.

“If it wasn’t for these guys, we’d all be in danger,” said Robert Friedel, a 43-year-old artist from nearby Smithville.

“People have better be damn glad the military — if they didn’t have this place to train, what would happen?” added John C. Calhoun, a 90-year-old World War II veteran wearing a camouflage hat, overalls, and flannel shirt (and saying he was named after the 19th-century politician).

But sitting a few feet away, James Kellam could not disagree more. Sure, his father was in the military for more than three decades and is now buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Sure, he grew up on military bases in the United States, France, and Germany. And yes, every Memorial Day, he puts flags on the graves of soldiers.

But these days, the 63-year-old retired teacher says he is scared of his government.

Related:"People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people."This one is scared of us; that's why this makes the front page of the Globe.

“They’re going to hit you with the propaganda: ‘It’s for the good of America. It’s for the good of the country,’ ” he said. “Come on, man. They can use any kind of excuse to put you in martial law.”

But how can he, even as he wore an American Legion T-shirt that said “We will not forget the sacrifice,” harbor such deep distrust of the military?

“The military doing this operation doesn’t know what they’re doing,” Kellam said. “They’re just following orders. Like the Nazis.”My Jewi$h paper never tires of flogging them.

He is not unfamiliar with the good that government can do. Nearly four years ago, when Texas wildfires swept through this area, his home burned down (the only things he saved, he said, were his guns, his son, and his dog). The Federal Emergency Management Agency wrote him a check for $30,200 to help him rebuild and gave him a trailer to live in while he got back on his feet.

But after FEMA forced him to leave the trailer after 11 months, he was infuriated.Maybe they did you a favor.They aren't asking for the money back, are they?

He said he’s seen the good and the bad from FEMA. But he doesn’t doubt that the agency could build camps to house dissidents, if it came to that.

“I can see how a FEMA camp can be done like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “It doesn’t take much to round people up.”

As for him, he said he has his guns and ammo. He carries a 40-caliber gun in the truck he drives while listening to Glenn Beck and Limbaugh.

“We’re ready. My neighbors are ready,” he said. “If they set up checkpoints, I’m going to be belligerent. ‘What the [expletive] do you think you’re doing? Get the [expletive] out of my way.’ I’m going to test it. Someone’s got to test it.”Thanks for playing into their hands.

MIAMI — President Obama said Thursday deadly flooding in Texas and Oklahoma is a reminder that the United States must toughen its response to the effects of natural disasters. He said climate change is affecting both the pace and intensity of storms.He is pushing that discredited uncertainty!? If so, shut down your f***ing war machine, a$$hole!

Making his first visit as president to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Obama said that, while the nation is more prepared than ever for storms, ‘‘the best scientists in the world are telling us that extreme weather events, like hurricanes, are likely to become more powerful.’’This is gro$$. So how did he get down to Miami anyway?

‘‘When you combine stronger storms with rising seas, that’s a recipe for more devastating floods,’’ he said.

Obama said storm forecasting has improved along with the means to get warnings out, but the United States must stay focused on ‘‘becoming more resilient to the impacts of a changing climate that are having significant effects on both the pace and intensity of some of these storms.’’He keeps talking like this I'll almost believe in HAARP again.

He spoke one day after government weather forecasters predicted six to 11 named storms this season, with three to six of them developing into hurricanes. That suggests this year’s hurricane season may be slower than average: From 1981 to 2010, the average has been 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major hurricanes per year. The season starts Monday.Pffft!

Related: "With six to 11 named storms predicted, this year’s hurricane season may be milder than average — but officials say that’s no reason for Atlantic and Gulf coast residents to rest easy. ‘‘Now is the time to start thinking ahead of the season. . . . Get ready before the bad events are coming down on you,’’ Kathryn Sullivan of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday as the agency released its forecast for this year’s season, which begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30. Forecasters give this forecast a 70 percent degree of accuracy. But since new climate models were developed in 2008, ‘‘we’ve been right five of the last six years,’’ said Gerry Bell, lead scientist in NOAA’s seasonal hurricane office." Yeah, sure, I'll take that on his say-so. They have just been wrong about winters, right!

Storms and severe flooding this week in Texas and Oklahoma have left at least 21 people dead and at least 10 others missing. Obama said a lot of rebuilding will be needed and the federal government will work to ensure a quick response.Pffft! They still haven't finished with Katrina.

Obama said climate change didn’t cause 2012’s powerful Hurricane Sandy but ‘‘it might have made it stronger,’’ as he pointed to higher sea levels in New York Harbor that made the storm surge worse.Might not.

As he toured the hurricane center, Obama checked out giant screens showing maps of the Eastern Seaboard and asked questions about the science used to develop forecasts, warnings, and storm surge predictions.

Obama’s past hurricane briefings took place in Washington. Thursday’s visit was arranged to highlight tools the government has developed to help communities prepare for hurricanes and other emergencies.Yeah, this government cares about you, yup!

The visit came a day after Obama helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Democratic Party at a pair of Miami fund-raisers.OH! The REAL REA$ON he was THERE!

During remarks after the briefing, Obama noted that Miami Beach, which has suffered high-tide flooding due to rising sea levels, is adjusting building codes and spending $400 million over five years to install pumping stations.Related: ISIS Attacked US Nuclear PlantAnd the propaganda pre$$ sewage just keeps rising even as the Indian Point incident recedes down the memory hole.

In Central Texas, search crews continued looking for the eight people feared dead after the swollen Blanco River smashed through Wimberley, a small tourist town between San Antonio and Austin, over the Memorial Day weekend. Authorities they are concerned that more rain forecast for the region could hamper the search.

The record rainfall in Texas has eased the state’s drought and swelled rivers and lakes to the point that they may not return to normal levels until July, scientists said Thursday.

‘‘There’s so much water in Texas and Oklahoma that it’s going to take quite a while for those rivers to recede,’’ said Mark Wiley, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Fort Worth.

If normal amounts of precipitation return, rivers will probably drop to average levels by the Fourth of July, he said.

‘‘Six months ago, we were dying for this stuff,’’ he said. ‘‘And now we’re saying, ‘Please, please stop.’’’

Many cities were still in danger of flooding as heavy rain from earlier in the week poured downstream, pushing rivers over their banks.

On Wednesday, the Houston area got a respite from the rain, but by Thursday runoff from earlier in the week had lifted the San Jacinto River above flood stage, and it kept climbing.

About 60 miles southwest of Houston, the mayor of Wharton asked residents to voluntarily leave about 300 homes because of the predicted rise of the Colorado River.

And in the community of Horseshoe Bend, 40 miles southwest of Fort Worth, officials asked people in 250 homes to flee the Brazos River.

By early Thursday, Parker County Emergency Management spokesman Joel Kertok said the Brazos had almost crested, but officials had no immediate reports of flooded homes and were monitoring the situation....

Obama stayed at the hurricane center afterward to participate in his first Twitter Q-and-A under his new @POTUS handle.OMG!

Obama responded to a wide variety of questions during the half-hour or so he spent at the computer keyboard, touching on climate change, Arctic drilling, a pending trade deal between the United States and Asia-Pacific countries, higher education, renewable energy, the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and Chicago Bulls and more.What, they screening them now?

‘‘The heart of the Cavs is Lebron,’’ Obama, an avid basketball fan, replied to one questioner. LeBron James returned to the Cavaliers, his former team, from the Miami Heat in 2014 and helped lead Cleveland into this year’s finals.That is not winning me over.

Obama also said he was sorry about Thursday’s firing of Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau. ‘‘Love Thibs and think he did a great job. Sorry to see him go but expect he will be snatched up soon by another team,’’ Obama said.Oh, I'm SO GLAD he is dealing with the IMPORTANT ISSUES before him! This article IS A JOKE!!!!

"Obama signs rule to expand clean water protections; Farmers, other industry groups vow to challenge" by Coral Davenport New York Times May 27, 2015

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday announced a sweeping new clean water regulation meant to restore the federal government’s authority to limit pollution in the nation’s rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands, part of a broader effort by Obama to use his executive authority to build an environmental legacy, without requiring new legislation from the Republican-controlled Congress.

But it also opened up a broad new front for attacks from business interests such as farmers, property developers, fertilizer and pesticide makers, oil and gas producers, and golf course owners, who contend that the rule would stifle economic growth and intrude on property owners’ rights.This will all be watered-down.

Industry groups, including the American Farm Bureau and the US Chamber of Commerce, are already preparing lawsuits to challenge the rule, and legal experts say the battle over control of the nation’s waters could end up before the Supreme Court, which in recent years has cast doubt on the government’s authority to regulate certain waterways.

Republicans in Congress point to the rule as an example of executive overreach by the Obama administration. This summer, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release a final set of regulations intended to counter climate change by limiting greenhouse gas pollution from power plants.

Already, Republican lawmakers are advancing legislation on Capitol Hill meant to block or delay both the climate change and clean water rules.

In announcing the rule, Obama said, “One in three Americans now gets drinking water from streams lacking clear protection, and businesses and industries that depend on clean water face uncertainty and delay, which costs our economy every day. Too many of our waters have been left vulnerable to pollution.Like coal ash spills that quickly vanish. Related:

“With today’s rule,” he added, “we take another step towards protecting the waters that belong to all of us.”

House Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, called the rule “a raw and tyrannical power grab that will crush jobs,” adding, “House members of both parties have joined more than 30 governors and government leaders” to reject the rule....I thought this article tasted funny.

"The driver of the car that hit six women as they walked to the beach Sunday in Orleans, seriously injuring three of them, may have fallen asleep at the wheel, according to police. An unidentified65-year-old man from New York is being charged with negligent operation of a motor vehicle and a marked lanes violation, and more charges may be forthcoming as the investigation continues, Orleans police said in a statement."

Look what I found:"The flood at the Congress Street building of Windstream — a Fortune 500 company that provides broadband, phone, and network communications — caused phone service outages for 3,200 businesses and nearly 7,000 homes, company spokesman Michael Teague said in a telephone interview Monday.... As severe thunderstorms rolled across the state Thursday, the city of Methuen experienced a microburst, the National Weather Service said."

"The Environmental Protection Agency this week is expected to propose regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty trucks, according to people briefed on the plans. A tractor-trailer now averages 5 to 6 miles per gallon; the new regulations would seek to raise that to as much as 9 miles per gallon. The rules, which cover almost any truck larger than a standard pickup, are the latest in a string of climate change policy measures by President Obama (New York Times)."

"Protesters with opposing views of Islam gathered peacefully outside a Phoenix mosque, under close police watch. About 250 people attended a rally Friday organized by a veteran of the Iraq War who believes Islam is a violent religion. Some carried pistols, rifles, US flags, and drawings of Mohammed. On the opposite site of the street near the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix were 250 others who came to support the mosque (AP)."Somebody trying to stir up another shootout?UPDATES:

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